ICT Ministry, Innovation Village Partner to Drive the ICT Innovation Agenda

The Ministry of ICT and National Guidance and The Innovation Village sign a Memorandum of Understanding geared towards driving the ICT Innovation agenda in Uganda. This is in line with the government’s commitment to create a digitally driven economy and realize universal goals of inclusion, sustainable development, economic progress, and poverty eradication through digital innovation.

Dr. Aminah Zawedde, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance while speaking to the press said, the partnership intends to unlock the market opportunity for Uganda’s ICT innovators and facilitate a legal framework to support public-private collaboration to transform Uganda’s ICT innovation landscape for socio-economic development.

“Our digital Uganda vision provides an overarching framework and unified ICT policy direction that responds to the national vision 2040,” said Dr. Zawedde. “Part of this strategy involves creating strategic partnerships that support forming a digitally knowledgeable and empowered society to inspire innovation and productivity of the people, organizations, businesses, and government.”

Dr. Zawedde further added that the Ministry together with The Innovation Village — they will be in a position to identify and develop projects that support innovation-oriented activities that are focused on leveraging emerging digital technologies and spur the development of the innovation ecosystem in Uganda.

She noted that as a Ministry they will also continue to establish different partnerships with various partners both in the private and government sector to enable digital skilling and provide capacity building, training, and certification courses to different innovators and the population at large to achieve digital transformation of the economy.

According to Japheth Kawanguzi, Team Lead at The Innovation Village, the collaboration will see the government through the Ministry support the ecosystem through financing mechanisms to deliver tailor-made services to young techpreneurs through a series of business training, coaching, and mentorship to help the youth transition into the employment and job creation sectors with the right skills.

“Together, we will work towards capacity building and development of innovators, and build a virtual factory network at the national level to empower ICT innovators and entrepreneurs to scale their businesses, with a focus on the competitive advantages of each of Uganda’s regions, aligned to the National Development Plan (NDP) III,” said Kawanguzi.

This move is strategically geared towards sustainably supporting the National ICT Initiatives Support Programme (NIISP) whose sole aim is to facilitate the creation of an ICT innovation ecosystem, equip entrepreneurs with digital skills, and find a market for Ugandan innovative digital products both locally and internationally.